


Infomercials and Information

by gala_apples



Category: Glee
Genre: Childhood Sexual Abuse, Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Multi, Panic Attacks, Triadverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 03:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6268588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jake wakes up to a running shower he doesn't expect it to lead to being awake half the night watching the Shamwow do its magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infomercials and Information

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day four of triadverse week, prompt MMF. If you'd like more info on the verse, have a [FAQ.](http://triadverse.tumblr.com/post/86154454124/triad-verse-faq)
> 
> This fic is slightly AU (aside from the triad thing), in that Ryder's parents do know what happened to him.

Jake wakes up, instantly aware of two things. 

The first is he needs to pee. Desperately. His entire lower half is tingling. His _toes_ have to pee. It’s his own fault, for chugging the rest of that two litre. But to be fair, he’d been ordered to. Ryder’d specifically said that they had to finish it, because no one in the family can stand flat soda, so if it wasn’t drunk it would be thrown out. Then Marley had bowed out of having any more, because her eating disorder is in a low part of her cycle, but still there enough that she can’t stand the idea of so much sugar.

The second is that Ryder isn’t in bed. Nor is he in either of the sleeping bags they put on the floor for appearances. Not that there would be a good reason for that either. Jake knows he’s not a bed hog, Marley’s confirmed it, and the Lynn’s are progressive enough to have given their son an adult sized bed instead of a kiddie single. But at least if Ryder was, Jake wouldn’t be missing him.

After a moment Jake figures the second thing out. He can hear water running, so Ryder must be having a shower. Fair idea. Earlier, when they were fooling around, Ryder had come on his own stomach, and Marley had come arching on his fingers. Then Jake had tried to give Ryder a facial, and gotten most of the spunk in his hair. That’s a lot harder to clean up with a tissue. He’d laughed it off at the time, but evidently two am is the time for a proper cleaning.

Jake considers waking up Marley for a second, but decides against it. She’s a bear to wake up, and even if she does fully respond to a gentle shoved shoulder, she’s not gonna be in the mood for sex. Call Jake selfish, but he wants to have a little nookie with his boyfriend. He eases his way out of bed and tiptoes until he’s outside the bathroom. He opens the door as slowly as possible, but it still creaks. Ryder’s house is nicely updated, granite countertops and all that jazz, but it’s old at heart. 

What happens next is much louder. Out of nowhere, something white hurtles at him. Jake manfully holds in his shocked scream. Instead he focuses on trying to dodge, but it’s too big. White and large. He does scream when it hits him. White and large and heavy. He collapses, arm starbursting with pain. Collapsing is its own kind of pain. Whatever it is, it’s broken, and there are shards of it scattered across the linoleum. 

Jake tries to collect himself. It doesn’t work. Between the confusion and the burst of adrenaline and the conflicting pains of dull ache in his shoulder and sharp hot on his calves he can’t figure out what’s happening.

Suddenly there’s a third person in the room. Or at least part of one. Ryder’s mima’s head is sticking through the crack and bouncing off the mirror. “Ryder honey? Can you hear me?”

“He’s not deaf,” Jake snaps. He might not have any idea of what’s going on, but it’s not like he threw something first and scrambled Ryder’s senses.

“Jake, I can’t come in and fix this. You’re too close to the door. You need to scooch forwards.”

“I can’t scooch forward! There’s sharp stuff everywhere!”

“It’s really important that you come out now. Frank- Ryder’s dad will help you with cleaning yourself up but he might throw something else if you don’t leave.”

And suddenly there’s his motivation. His palm touches a splinter, but luckily Jake’s a dancer. He only needs to put his hand on the floor for a moment before he finds his center and can haul the rest of his body up without putting weight down. 

After he gets out, Mrs Lynn goes in. She doesn’t close the door behind her. It would seem weird if Jake’s What The Hell meter wasn’t already maxxed out. Mr and Mrs Lynn are standing further back in the hallway, Ryder’s little sisters with them. Jake can’t tell the difference looking at them, he never can. But they’re wearing different nightgowns so if he get the name of one twin he can process of elimination the other.

“We keep a first aid kit in the girls room. Kirstie has a scissors problem.”

Ryder’s dad takes Jake to Kirstie and Kellie’s room, while his mima stays in the bathroom and his mom goes back upstairs. Jakes pretty sure she works an early morning shift, so no doubt she doesn’t appreciate this interruption. Jake will tell Ryder to apologise for him -if he ever figures out what’s going on and can get his boyfriend to talk to him.

“You shouldn’t have broken his privacy,” one twin intones. Kellie? Jake really doesn’t know. Earlier they were easily named because Kellie had her hair in a braid and Kirstie didn’t, but now they both have sleep-disheveled ponytails.

The other nods. “Family rules are rules for a reason.”

“So he can try to murder me because I need to pee?” 

Saying it reminds his body that yes, he still needs to. Mr Lynn must catch it with his parent vibes, because he looks up from the gauze pads and stringy tape to say “you can use the master bath in a minute. Just let me patch your foot first.”

“You shouldn’t’a peed when Ryder needs privacy.”

“Okay. Maybe the Lynns are more shy than me and my mom.” Jake’s willing to concede that. You grow up differently when you have one parent instead of the standard three. A whole lot less boundaries. Marley knows that too. If all the Lynns hardpress privacy as a value, yeah, fine for Ryder to get mad about getting interrupted. But what just happened wasn’t just _mad_. That was close to assault. “But he threw- what even was that?”

“I’m guessing the toilet lid, from the crash. Look, it’s not my right to tell you. But if I know my son, he will. You just need to wait for Justine to help him get back.”

“Back from what?” Jake demands. It’s not like Ryder went anywhere. He was definitely in that room. Shit, he was pretty fucking territorial about having the room to himself.

“Ryde’s got PSTD.”

“PTSD, stupid,” blue nightie corrects.

“That’s it, last bandage. Girls, back to bed. Jake, you can hang out in the living room and watch some tv. Justine will send him out when he’s ready. Grab a snack if you want.”

Jake follows Mr Lynn to his bedroom so he can partake in his bathroom. It’s slightly awkward to walk past Ryder’s mom already in bed, but honestly it barely ranks compared to some of the things that have happened to him. Then it’s to the ground floor living room to attempt to stay awake until Ryder can tell him what the hell is going on. He turns the tv on, but dials the volume to almost mute so he doesn’t disturb anyone. A few minutes into hearing all about the wonderful bo-flex Marley comes to sit with him. She curls up beside him and Jake slings arm around her. He surreptitiously changes the channel too, to another garbage infomercial. Just in case Marley’s eyes are open, she doesn’t need to see surgically enhanced athletes peddling their perfect exercise system. He and Ryder have both long since learned about ED triggers.

He’s nearly passed out sitting up when the creak of carpet covered floor boards rouses him. Jake cracks open an eye to see who it is coming in, and gets an eyeful of his boyfriend, fully dressed like it’s not the middle of the night. Ryder flicks on a lamp across the room, but leaves the main lights off.

“So.”

“Yeah. So,” Jake says. He doesn’t know where to go with this, what to say next. Neither is Marley being any help. She’s resettled beside him so she’s sitting up to look at their boyfriend, and she’s obviously paying attention, but she seems content to be mute.

“I guess I should say I’m sorry. I mean, you’re bleeding and that sucks. But I didn’t- You- I didn’t expect you to come in. It wasn’t okay. You can’t do that.”

“Uh.” Jake feels a slice of annoyance, but tries to push it down. It sounds like he’s being told what to do, like he got what he deserved, but that’s not true. It’s just like when Marley says at the beginning of an afternoon that they can’t make a Seven Eleven run, not even if she later says it’s okay, because she’ll be lying then, and she’s trying to get better about honesty. Whatever Ryder’s problem is, he’s doing his best to talk about it now, and Jake can’t be pissed about how he expresses it.

Ryder crosses his arms over his chest. His long sleeves ride up a little to show his wrists. “I have PTSD.”

“Yeah, your sisters said. I didn’t realise you had a shower phobia though. You seem to do fine in the locker room.”

“Because I’m not trapped. Because if I screamed someone would hear.”

“Dude. Screamed? What freakin’ happened?”

Ryder tightens his stance and rocks on his heels. “I really don’t want to talk about this.”

“Okay, reward time,” Jake offers. “Tell me your thing, and I’ll give you middle of the night sex.”

Marley elbows him. “Don’t bring sex into therapy stuff,” she hisses at him, speaking up for the first time.

“Depending on how you react, you might never get sex again. When I was eleven my babysitter molested me. She walked in on me, in the shower. She touched me a bit.”

What the fuck. What the fuck?! Jake doesn’t know where this woman is now, but he hopes she’s dead. “Oh man, that is so fucked up.”

“Good reaction.”

“What? Is there another reaction?” The tv glints off Ryder’s teeth. Jake feels really concerned about Ryder smiling right now. He’s clearly not sane yet.

“Oh, you know. The hot older girl, great way to lose your virginity, you’re such a man way.

Jake really wants to know who said that, so he can hit him or her. Or them. Maybe some guys would like it. For example, Jake’s ninety percent sure Puck lost it to a cougar. But age only doesn’t matter if it’s consensual sex. “Those idiots can go die.”

“There’s more of them than you think. My lacrosse team in junior high actually had a congrats banner put up, my first practice after. And guys at the grocery store would give me high fives.” There are tears in Ryder’s eyes. Jake wants to wipe them away with his thumbs, but that seems condescending and Jake doesn’t want to present anything but anger.

“That’s so wrong, Ryder. I’m so sorry,” Marley says softly.

“So now you know. What are you going to do about it? Sure you want some broken victim to be in your triad?”

The questions are a test. There’s no other word for it, it’s a test. For a split second Jake feels resentful. Hasn’t he already made it clear he knows the actions of others were evil? And where is Marley answering hard questions? But for the second time tonight, the anger’s not fair, and he knows it. He’s answering because he’s supposed to be the ‘normal’ one. Marley won’t judge Ryder for having triggers, they all know that. Jake, as much as he hates the idea, is the factor closest to unknown. And he’s answering because it was him that found out, that actually saw the spin out. Marley’s got the idea of it, but Jake’s the one who walked into it. Maybe it’s better that way. It’s possible that Ryder threw the lid at chest height because his subconscious realised a boy was entering. Marley might have been classified a real threat and gotten the porcelain lid at head height. That could have ended a lot worse than a few cuts.

“Well for starters, you’re our boyfriend until the day you decide you’re not. And you’re not broken. You might be a little fucked up, but like the two of us aren’t? Come on man. As for what I’m gonna do? I’m going to take the family rule of privacy a lot more seriously, since that’s obviously trigger based. And it’s not like I liked rape jokes before, but the next one I hear is going to get a broken nose. And I won’t tell anyone unless you say I can.”

Hesitant, not sure how the gesture will be received, Jake edges Marley closer to the arm of the couch. His left arm stays around her, but he raises his right out high. In less than ten seconds Ryder’s folding into the embrace. His hair is still damp from the disastrous shower. Jake’s arm curves around Ryder, bringing him in. It’s comfortable, but Jake’s in no way ready to doze off. His cuts hurt, a little bit, but more than that his mind is wide awake. This is totally new territory. There’s no Puck advice waiting in the wings about etiquette for babysitter rape. He really, really wants to murder her. Even more when he realises he doesn’t even know if she’s in jail. She’d have to be though, right? You don’t just not go to jail for child molestation. His brain won’t shut up, too ready to go kick some ass. Barring that though he can hold his boyfriend in his arms and keep him safe. He keeps Marley safe from a world that can hurt her, he can do the same for Ryder.


End file.
